


Together

by carmillasleatherpants (courtneyarnelle)



Series: Personal Assistant AU [2]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: An Epilogue Of Sorts?, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Mostly Fluff, personal assistant au, very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtneyarnelle/pseuds/carmillasleatherpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With her... The future doesn't seem quite so dim.</p><p>(Personal Assistant AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> With the angst in canon, I figured I'd go ahead and post this follow up to TTWC that's been collecting dust in my folders since March. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> ~ Takes place immediately after the events in TTWC. ~

**You walk into the** kitchen where your father is biting into an apple and reading something he opened from the mail. He smiles when he looks up from the pages at you, and as he turns, his eyes quickly flit from your face down to where your pinky is linked with Carmilla’s. You can practically see the gears turning in his head but you decide not to say anything and let him figure it out himself. Carmilla’s shoulder presses against yours.

“When’s the wedding?” He asks, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He grins at your look of brief horror. Then you laugh out your built up nervousness because of all the things you expected him to say, it wasn’t that.

“Don’t embarrass me, Dad.” You glance up at Carmilla and she’s smiling down at you with a look you can only classify as smitten. You have to force your gaze back to your father or you think you might ignore his presence and make out with her then and there, but he’s laughing at his own joke and paying little attention to your shared looks with Carmilla.

He takes another bite of his apple and sets the papers in his hand down on the counter. You spare another quick glance up at Carmilla and you can’t help but smile at the blush tinting her cheeks.

“Dad, I—We actually have to ask you something.”

“Laura, let me.” Carmilla interrupts. She releases your pinky to slide her fingers between yours and you squeeze her hand encouragingly. “I was, um, I was wondering if you’d mind too much if I stayed here. I know I don’t have much of a right to ask that of you, but—”

Carmilla pauses and you frown. You know she doesn’t want to use the fact she has nowhere else to go as a reason for him to say yes, but it _is_ the truth.

“Carmilla,” You both look at him when he speaks and he gives her that kind smile that always makes you feel safe and that you can come to him with anything. “Of course you can stay here. I’m not sure what happened, but I figure you’ll explain everything when you’re ready, right?” She nods quickly beside you. “Alright then. But separate beds. I didn’t mind when it was all platonic but I don’t want to hear any late night sex when I’m trying to sleep.”

“ _Dad!_ ” You hiss, completely mortified. He laughs heartily at himself and you wonder if it’s really impossible to die from embarrassment. You slip out of Carmilla’s grip to cover your face with your hands as he continues to laugh.

“I’m only kidding, sweetie. Just keep it down, yeah?”

“ _Dad_ , _please._ ”

“No promises.” Carmilla says, and your father laughs a little louder. You glare up at Carmilla and she’s grinning down at you.

“So _not_ helping.” You nudge her with your hip and she nudges you back.

“You’re no fun.” Her arm slides around your waist and you cross your arms to attempt to appear still somewhat upset. But, if this was any indication that Carmilla and your father would continue to get along great, you’d take what you could get.

* * *

 

 **You and Carmilla end** up sitting in the kitchen talking with your father late into the night. He wishes the two of you goodnight. Once he’s gone you turn to Carmilla. Pretending she hadn’t just _walked out of her entire lifestyle for you_ would be fantastic. But you can’t do that.

“What are you going to do now?” You ask her, and she shrugs. Carmilla turns into you and her fingers play along the skin of your forearm.

“I really don’t know,” She finally admits. You set a hand on the table and slide it towards her. She slides her fingers between yours. “I didn’t think this through entirely. I was just thinking of you.”

“Carm, that’s sweet.”

“Yeah. Well, now I’m here mooching off your father’s good hospitality. God, I’m going to have to get a _job_.” She spits out the word “job” like its poison and you look at her pale hand against yours.

“I forgot you didn’t actually work, more like you had me do everything for you.” You joke and she cracks a smile.

“Shut up, Laura.”

“But seriously, Carmilla.” You look up and meet her gaze. “No one expects you to just run out and get a job. And I’m sure he doesn’t mind having you here.”

“I don’t want to take advantage of that though.” You shake your head.

“You’re not, I promise.” You scoot your chair closer to her and press a kiss to her cheek. She turns to you and searches your eyes for a moment, looking for any sign that you’re just lying to make her feel better. Then, seeing none, her hand leaves your arm to cup your cheek, bringing you back to her for a proper kiss.

“Fine.” She says against your lips. You smile and kiss her again.

“Fine.”

* * *

 

 **Things are okay for** the next three days. You know nothing you could do could compare to the extravagant party that had been planned for her birthday. You ask her if she wants to go anywhere, to give her something to distract herself but she shakes her head and says being able to sit around without worrying about a thing would be the best gift you could possibly give her.

“Lazy.” You’d said, and she snorted at that and buried her face into your neck.

You don’t expect to awaken on the morning of her birthday and hear soft crying coming from the bathroom. It’s so quiet you don’t even think you’d really heard it at first, then you hear sniffling and you feel your heart drop into your stomach.

You roll out of bed immediately and approach the bathroom. The door is cracked just slightly and you hear the sniffling again, you knock gently and it stops immediately. Then Carmilla pulls open the door, her eyes filled with unshed tears and rimmed red. Her lower lip trembles and you invite yourself in and close the door behind you.

“Carm—”

“I don’t want to talk right now.” Her reply is watery and she swallows. “Just—” She opens her arms and you hug her. She presses her face into your shoulder and lets out a choked sob. You dig your fingers into the fabric covering her shoulders as her arms squeeze you around your waist. You hold her until she calms down.

She leaves a dark patch in your pajama shirt that you don’t even consider when she pulls away from you.

“Sorry.”

“Carmilla, you don’t have to apologize. Just— What’s wrong?”

“Everything. I have nothing. Not a penny to my name other than what’s in my wallet. God I have so many credit cards that are _worthless_. Looking at them makes me feel sick.” She chokes on her words as another sob builds in her throat. She wipes at her face and you sit down on the cool tile of the bathroom and pull her down with you. You lean back against the sink and she mirrors your position.

“You don’t have _nothing_.” You try, and her hand finds yours.

“You know what I mean.” You do, but that doesn’t make you feel any better. You lace your fingers with hers and she rest her head on your shoulder. “I’ve never not known where life was going to take me. Since I was little I’ve known what I was expected to be, _who_ I was expected to be. And today was the day all that work would come to fruition. And I don’t regret what I did, but it just… It hit me kind of hard.”

You don’t say anything, figuring she just needed to get her thoughts out and she just needed you to listen. You rub your thumb against her knuckles and she sighs before she continues.

“I’m sorry for waking you.” You shake your head.

“I know what we can do.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Carmilla already has the teasing quality back in her voice and she lifts her head from your shoulder to smile.

“Let’s go cut up your credit cards.”

“What?”

“Come on. It’s the first step to moving on.” You put your hand on her thigh and she narrows her eyes at you. You smile encouragingly, then she shrugs.

“Alright, fine.”

“Seal it with a kiss?” She rolls her eyes at you, but leans in and brushes her lips against yours. You wrap your arms behind her neck and practically pull her on top of you. Her hands land on your shoulders to keep herself steady. She pulls away first, but stays close enough to you that you can feel her breath on your lips.

“Thank you.” You kiss her again instead of answering her. Carmilla, despite her prior mood, slides her hands under your shirt and her nails drag down your back. You almost ask her to move back to your comfortable bed, but when her lips press against your collarbone you’re already too far gone to care.

That’s how you eventually end up standing by a trash bin with Carmilla as she cuts up her credit cards one by one. Her eyes are still rimmed red when she finishes, but she returns to back to her snarky, disaffected self within a few minutes of the final card. She still has the three hundred dollar bills she was carrying around in her wallet for whatever reason so she isn’t completely broke.

She asks you to take her to whatever bank you use to start a new bank account for herself. Since she’d no doubt been cut off by now. When you get there, you offer to go in with her, but she tells you she needs to do this by herself. So you don’t push her.

* * *

 

 **It’s by no means** perfect after that first week. You and Carmilla had been in a very short honeymoon state for those first few days until her birthday. Then the problems start. Carmilla’s office had been kept clean by janitors for the most part, but you should have known by the state of the papers on her desk she would be a messy roommate.

Though most of your arguments end in sex and her conceding to what you’d wanted her to do initially, it’s… Different living with Carmilla than you expected. Not that you’d _had_ any expectations going in. This all still felt like a weird dream to you.

Carmilla has a hard time adjusting to not being able to do whatever she wants. Her funds are limited now and she can’t do much but sit around the house and look at possible job opportunities. Strangely it’s you who receives a call from a news station in Brooklyn offering you a job-- which confuses you since you definitely hadn’t applied.

When you tell Carmilla she congratulates you but doesn’t seem at all surprised. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

“Was that you?”

“Was what me?”

“You know what I’m talking about Carmilla. That job offer.” She’s silent on your living room couch for too long and you move towards her and nudge her leg.

“I might have had _something_ to do with it.” She finally admits and you groan.

“Why’d you do that?” She doesn’t answer you again and you feel yourself getting unreasonably angry. “I’m perfectly capable of getting a job by myself, Carmilla.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you—”

“It’s difficult to break into mainstream media stations. I wanted to help so I did. At the time I was only thinking of helping how I could, since I _thought_ I wouldn’t see you again.” Your shoulders slump at that. How were you supposed to be mad if she said things like that? Your push your hair back from your face.

“Look that’s—That’s sweet and all, Carm. But you know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know that. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to give you a hand every now and then.”

* * *

 

 **“I think I want** to go to art school.” She says one night just as you’re close to falling asleep. She’s laying with her head on your chest as you hold her in your arms. You’re both still a little sweaty from the amazingly and maybe even a little surprisingly tender sex you’d just had. That was another thing that had changed. The sex. There was a lot less of the rushed urgency that had been your… Prior arrangement. Being able to just take your time and really explore each other’s bodies was amazing. You drag your fingers down her arm.

It’s been three weeks since you got the call from the news station and you’d been hired. They’d told you this was more of a trial and you’d been doing small news packages at first, but that if you worked and proved yourself, you could easily move up.

Carmilla had attempted to get a job, but as soon as they heard her last name they stopped taking her seriously. Because why on earth would someone involved with Karnstein industries work for minimum wage?

And then, last week it had been announced that Carmilla was no longer going to be taking on the position as the new chairman of Karnstein Industries. Instead, her cousin Will would be taking over in three years. No information was released as to why Carmilla had dropped out or where she went. Carmilla hadn’t reacted much other than refusing to leave the house to avoid being hounded by the media.

You were more than aware of the buzz of finding out what happened now that you had a job on set. Rewards were being offered to anyone who could track her down. While it was almost tempting, you could and would never sell Carmilla out just for your own benefit. You hadn’t said a word to her about it.

“Yeah?” You finally say in response and she turns her head so her chin presses into your shoulder.

“Yeah. And I just—I think I need to get out of New York.” She admits and you tighten your arms around her.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Where are we going?”

“We?” She asks and you look at her with a smile.

“Yeah. _We._ You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Karnstein. Where you go, I’ll go.” Carmilla starts to smile, then she turns her head and presses her cheek back against your chest.

“You talk too much.” She murmurs. You laugh at that. The two of you fall back into silence and her fingers trace patterns into your stomach. You’re starting to drift off when she speaks again. “Will sent me a check.”

“He did?” You feel her nod and wrap her arm around your waist.

“I haven’t done anything with it. He wrote a note that it was a gift for me to buy some art supplies with, and that he has my old sketchbooks safe from harm.” You don’t answer her at first.

“Are you going to use it?” You ask and this time you’re met with silence.

“I don’t know.” You sit up and she presses her elbow into the mattress to sit up and meet your eye.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to be some charity case.” She says bitterly.

“Babe, come on.” She raises an eyebrow at that ‘ _babe’_ but you ignore her. “Will is just trying to help you out. Don’t let it go to waste because of your pride. You know you’ll need a portfolio to get into art school.”

“I’m not being… Prideful.” She pouts and you can’t help your smile.

“Come on. Just think about it. Will would be happy to know you let him help you out. Not to be the bearer of bad news but I can’t really afford to buy you top notch art supplies.” Carmilla then moves away from you and reaches into one of the drawers on your nightstand. She pulls the check out and hands it to you. Your eyes widen when you see all those zeros.

“This is _lot_ of money.”

“I know. I guess I’ll use it then. It’s just—Well, I’ve never actually done anything other than sketching. I’ve never tried painting.”

“Well don’t knock it until you try it, right? Practice makes perfect.”

“You’re just full of clichés aren’t you?”

“Carmilla, I’m being serious.”

“I know.” She leans into you and presses gentle kisses against your neck with just enough pressure to distract you. “I’ll try it.”


End file.
